AFFORDABLE [uh-fawr-duh-buhl] adj.

According to dictionary.com, affordable means, “believed to be within one’s financial means.” Obviously the politicians in Washington took this definition literally when they passed the Affordable Care Act.

According to an article in Forbes this past week, individual health insurance premiums will increase by an average of 41% across the country. Offering subsidies to a small subset of Americans to help offset substantially higher rates for everyone else doesn’t make sense.  However by this definition, all they needed to do was to make health insurance within one’s financial means.  And as of yesterday we know at least 5 have enrolled so far.

The Manhattan Institute put together an excellent interactive map that shows pre and post ObamaCare rates for each state:

Manhattan Institute – Know Your Rates

There are winners and losers in ObamaCare.

Winners: unhealthy people that were forced into expensive state pool guaranteed issue health plans that can now get any plan they choose without proof of insurability
Winners: low wage earners that qualify for expanded Medicaid or a substantial premium subsidy (and actually make it through healthcare.gov)

Losers: everyone else

I guess it all depends on what your definition of the word “Affordable” is…

Massachusetts is working so well… Why not force it on everyone?

So now that the people have spoken very loudly (just ask Claire McCaskill) against socialized medicine congress is trying to get support for another bill that is eerily similar to the Massachusetts healthcare reform plan. The good news is we now have a track record to see how well these mandates work. The bad news is that nobody in the majority party seems to care about results.

Three Lessons from Massachusetts

We can’t afford to make the same mistake.

And would somebody actually read the bill before they vote?